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Stakeholders in the building sector have said that the greatest obstacle to achieving housing deficit in the country is the Land Use Act.
Speaking to Daily Sun, an expert, Mr. Meckson Okoro, said the Land Use Act is one of the fine policies of the government that is not managed well, saying that policy makers, operaators and governors are not making it work.
“Again, as a result of corruption and impunity of government officials, the act does not work effectively well. So, we see the governors enter what they like because nobody is controlling them from anywhere, not even the federal government despite as I think there are checks and balances.
“Is it possible to know how many people have benefited from the Act since it was created on March 28, 1978? The state governments hijacked the Act and they are using it to punish those state actors that are in opposition.
“Ordinarily, the Act was enacted to facilitate the development of real estate and to a very little extent, not even to a large extent, they try to use it as a patronage to help those who are loyal to their government.
“The federal government that established the Act does not seem to have interest in it as a way of managing property interest in Nigeria. The housing deficit is increasing despite what they put on the papers to help regulate the excesses. Again, the rent-to-own scheme would have been a means of reducing housing deficit. The scheme is only possible where there is adequate job employment particularly in overseas countries where people have job security.
“Here in Nigeria, many people are not employed and those employed cannot even guarantee regular salary payment because they are not sure of the next month income and cash-flow into the company. So the system of rent-to-own may be a good idea but it is not tenable in Nigeria and cannot work. The greatest impediment of it is because many people are not employed so many may not sustain and maintain the payment structure. Even when they are employed, the salary they receive is so meager that it cannot support the scheme of rent-to-own system of buying houses,” he said.
Also speaking on the issue, the National President of Building Collapse Prevention Guild in Nigeria (BCPG) Mr. Sulaimon Yusuf, noted that for housing deficit to reduce, there is need to look at the land policy again.
He said: “Government needs to free land to enable better participation in housing. There will be a need to encourage more private sector initiative. For us to achieve housing for all there will be the reintroduction of the low cost housing. You need to provide an enabling environment to the private sector.
“You want them to deliver the low cost housing, it means the government on its own must be ready to provide infrastructure in those developments. The present government must be looking at how it will refocus the land policy, encourage adequate participation and provide incentive to the private sector to enable them to build the low cost housing. They need to give them land free, provide infrastructure in those areas, for that will reduce their expenses in those houses.
“The state government has to provide the land, provide houses too by engaging the estate developers who can develop, then tailor your land policy to ensure that when you give land to all these people, curtain percentages, about 30 per cent should be dedicated to the provision of low cost housing within the estate.”
Through this medium, it is compulsory we must address the problem of low cost housing, and through that medium, we can have more houses available for that level of needs,” he maintained.
